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Bexley students and educators have written a policy that spells out harsher penalties for cheating without ruining academic careers.

“Our job is to help students understand (cheating) is wrong and that there’s a consequence for it,” said Harley Williams, principal of Bexley’s middle and high school.

The Bexley school board approved an “academic integrity” policy last month that assigns penalties for minor and major infractions. Minor offenses include failing to cite references, while major offenses include copying another student’s assignments.

For students in grades four through 12, a major offense can mean academic probation and exclusion from an academic honors event. The consequences are tougher for middle- and high-school students, who also can lose out on local scholarships or miss as much as four weeks of athletic or extracurricular activities.

Students can now redo an assignment but will receive a grade no higher than 59 percent — a high F.

Eric Anderman, professor of educational psychology at Ohio State University, applauds the district’s efforts. Still, students will cheat, he said.

“Kids go through cost-benefit analysis,” Anderman said. “What is the chance of winning, and what’s the chance of getting caught? It makes some kids ... sneakier.”

He said cheating remains rampant in schools despite recent dips in a national survey.

Last year, 51 percent of students admitted cheating on an exam in the past year — an 8 percentage point drop from 2010, according to the Josephson Institute of Ethics’ Report Card on American Youth’s Values and Actions.

Those who used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment dropped from 34 percent in 2010 to 32 percent last year. The biennial study surveyed 23,000 public and private high-school students last year.

Many central Ohio school districts include cheating policies in their student handbooks, some as early as elementary school.

Granville adopted a policy eight years ago that spells out violations such as “knowingly taking credit for an assignment to which you did not contribute” or “using friends’/siblings’ papers or work from previous years as your own.” The policy also details consequences.

For example, in addition to losing credit for the assignment they cheated on, first-time high-school offenders are not eligible for the National Honor Society for a year. Students with three or more offenses could see them listed on their high-school transcripts for up to five years after they graduate.

Whitehall, on the other hand, has no set policy and handles incidents case by case.

Bexley officials said cheating isn’t a serious issue, reporting only 25 incidents over the past three years.

But senior Oliver Gladfelter, 18, said students raised the issue after reports that athletes had been caught cheating but continued to play.

“If an athlete was caught drinking or doing drugs, he would be punished by being suspended from playing,” he said. “It seemed unequal.”

Students worked with the school board and administrators for several years.

“The consequences aren’t worth the risk of getting caught,” Gladfelter said of the new policy.